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Captain Nice (1967)

by: Buck Henry

Publication date: 1967

Topics: VHS, superhero, superheroes, William Daniels, Alice Ghostley, Ann Prentiss, Liam Dunn, Byron Foulger, sitcom, comedy, Buck Henry, Bob Newhart

Language: English

Years before gaining fame as a talking car and a curmudgeonly schoolteacher, William Daniels (Knight Rider, Boy Meets World) played Carter Nash, a chemist who discovered a magic elixir that transformed him into Captain Nice. His domineering mother (Alice Ghostley) pushed him into becoming a crimefighter and created a costume for him out of a pair of pajamas. As an inside-joke, recognizable character actor Byron Foulger was unrecognizable as Carter's henpecked father, who was always silent and hidden behind a newspaper. Meter maid Candy Kane (Ann Prentiss) was a love interest for Carter, although he consistently rejected her affections, and she was the only city worker who wasn't inept. Mayor Finney (Liam Dunn) was Carter's maternal uncle, and Chief Segal (Bill Zuckert) was a clone of Batman's Chief O'Hara.

ABC's "Batman" was being prepped to debut when the pilots for "Captain Nice"and "Mr. Terrific," were first announced in late 1965. The show was created by Buck Henry, who'd just scored a massive hit for NBC with "Get Smart," which he co-created with Mel Brooks. Looking to cast an unknown in the lead, someone caught wind of an actor named Stephen Strimpell, who was a darling of the New York theatre community, and he was flown to Hollywood for a screen test, but Henry had a different actor in mind. While walking by a movie theater, Henry took notice of a lobby card featuring William Daniels clad in a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, looking quite a bit like Clark Kent, and he knew he'd found his star. Daniels shot the pilot, then went to Paris to shoot "Two for the Road," and was briefly involved with the preliminaries on the Katherine Hepburn Broadway musical "Coco" before learning the show was greenlit at NBC.

Meanwhile, CBS's "Mr. Terrific" originally starred Alan Young, fresh off of "Mr. Ed." The show was picked up as a midseason replacement -- but for unknown reasons, Young was dropped and the entire concept was overhauled (allegedly, Young was so bitter that he refused to discuss the show in interviews). Producer Jack Arnold had seen Strimpell's screen test for "Captain Nice" and gave him the lead for the revised version of "Mr. Terrific." But now here's where things get sticky. Even though both shows went into production at roughly the same time (which seems to happen a lot in Hollywood!), and Arnold outright admitted to TV Guide that he'd stolen his actor, Daniels claimed in his autobiography that CBS threatened to sue, alleging that Henry had stolen their concept. Ultimately, nothing became of it, although this makes the scheduling seem a little weirder...

Both shows premiered on Monday, January 9, 1967. "Mr. Terrific" played on CBS at 8pm and "Captain Nice" aired on NBC at 8:30. This was great for youngsters, who could just flip the dial and have an hour of superheroes, but it made the two shows indistinguishable from one another. "Mr. Terrific" was considerably more juvenile, with redundant sequences and not much in the way of humor for adults. "Captain Nice" was smarter and worked on two levels, but it stood in the shadow of "Get Smart," and by the time it began developing its own identity, viewers had already tuned out. The reviews were kinder for "Captain Nice," although Henry later claimed that a major critic "accused it of being a homosexual plot to take over America!" (Jeez, I wish I could find that review.)

The show received a sizable marketing push, with promotional art featured in commercials by comic legend Jack Kirby, a tie-in novel with an original story by William Johnston (who authored nine "Get Smart" novels, in addition to books based on The Munsters, Brady Bunch and Welcome Back Kotter), a one-shot comic book, and a set of Topps Trading Cards -- plus, there was a short story record in Japan (that I think is adapted from the episode How Sheik Can You Get?... although I don't speak Japanese and the YouTube subtitles are wonky, so I'm not certain!).

"Mr. Terrific" fared pretty well in the ratings -- and reruns on Sunday nights no doubt boosted it to the 36th highest-rated program of the year. "Captain Nice" sometimes outperformed it, even playing opposite the high-rated "Lucy Show" and "Rat Patrol," although it was never seen outside of its normal Monday timeslot ,and NBC asked for a full $15K less for commercial time than CBS demanded for Mr. Terrific. Unfortunately, the Batman craze was quickly imploding, its companion show, The Green Hornet, was tanking, plans for a Wonder Woman series were scrapped (for a few years, anyway), and the Broadway show "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman" had already run its course. By February 27, after only 5 episodes of each show had aired, both networks had announced that they wouldn't be returning for another season. However, the shows continued to be broadcast weekly, each completing their runs on August 28, 1967. By the networks' reckoning, their audiences were primarily children, who weren't perceived as consumers (ya know, until the 1970s and '80s changed that perception!).

Legend has it that the ratings had nothing to do with the cancellations. Both Captain Nice and Mr. Terrific had to ingest experimental pharmaceuticals to trigger their superpowers. With children as the largest audience and the shows continuing in reruns throughout the infamous "summer of love," drugs were in forefront of the public consciousness, and it's been alleged that parents organizations pressured the networks to pull the plugs. However, take this with a grain of salt since Universal subsequently re-edited a few episodes of "Mr. Terrific" to air in syndication as a TV-movie titled "The Pill Caper."

All wasn't lost though. A few jokes from "Captain Nice" were recycled on "Get Smart," Henry finagled roles for Daniels and Ghostley in the instant-classic "The Graduate" (which he penned), and much later, Daniels landed jobs on "Knight Rider" and "St. Elsewhere" because Grant Tinker, a producer and executive at NBC, was a fan of this show.

The series went on to be rerun internationally, and was very popular in other countries, most notably Germany, where it received a DVD release that is, unfortunately, heavily edited and sans English audio. It's been issued twice, the second time, double-packaged with "Mr. Terrific." An Italian DVD release seems to be a bootleg duped from VHS copies and it's also lacking an English soundtrack.

The only other exposure the show's had in the USA was on Ha! The Comedy Channel (later renamed Comedy Central), where it aired twice daily from 1990-1991. That's where these copies originated. They seem to have been cut by a minute or two to accommodate increased commercial time -- although they're much longer than the German DVD edits, which are reported to run 14 mins. Regardless, most don't even seem to be on YouTube. These were shared many years ago by someone named Colossus, though I'm unsure if that's the same person who ripped the tapes. Whomever did it, thanks to them!

There are also a few pdfs here for anyone who wants to dig deeper... although Daniels never had a lot to say about it (even when it was airing), I've yet to find anything substantial from Henry on the subject, and Prentiss seemed more interested in discussing her more famous sister (and being spanked!) than the show she was promoting.

Jeez, I fell down a rabbit hole on this and hope somebody appreciates all the research I've done...